This application relates generally to fiber-optic communications. This application relates more specifically to optical wavelength cross-connect architectures used in fiber-optics applications.
The Internet and data communications are causing an explosion in the global demand for bandwidth. Fiber optic telecommunications systems are currently deploying a relatively new technology called dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) to expand the capacity of new and existing optical fiber systems to help satisfy this demand. In DWDM, multiple wavelengths of light simultaneously transport information through a single optical fiber. Each wavelength operates as an individual channel carrying a stream of data. The carrying capacity of a fiber is multiplied by the number of DWDM channels used. Today DWDM systems employing up to 80 channels are available from multiple manufacturers, with more promised in the future.
In all telecommunication networks, there is the need to connect individual channels (or circuits) to individual destination points, such as an end customer or to another network. Systems that perform these functions are called cross-connects. Additionally, there is the need to add or drop particular channels at an intermediate point. Systems that perform these functions are called add-drop multiplexers (ADMs). All of these networking functions are currently performed by electronics—typically an electronic SONET/SDH system. However, multi-wavelength systems generally require multiple SONET/SDH systems operating in parallel to process the many optical channels. This makes it difficult and expensive to scale DWDM networks using SONET/SDH technology. The alternative is an all-optical network. Optical networks designed to operate at the wavelength level are commonly called “wavelength routing networks” or “optical transport networks” (OTN). In a wavelength routing network, the individual wavelengths in a DWDM fiber must be manageable. Optical wavelength cross connects are configured generally to redirect the individual optical channels on a plurality of input optical fibers to a plurality of output optical fibers. Each incoming channel may be directed to any of the output optical fibers depending on a state of the cross connect. Thus, where there are P input fibers and Q output fibers, the optical wavelength cross connect between them may be considered to be a “PN×QN optical switch.” Sometimes herein, the terminology “P×Q optical wavelength cross connect” is used to refer to such a cross connect by referring to the numbers of input and output optical fibers, each of which is understood to have the capacity for carrying N channels. As such the “P×Q optical wavelength cross connect” terminology may be considered shorthand for describing an arbitrarily configurable PN×QN optical device.
FIG. 1 provides an example of a prior-art 4×4 optical wavelength cross connect 100 for a DWDM system carrying N individual wavelength channels. Each of the N channels on the four input signals 104 may be redistributed in accordance with a state of the cross connect 100 among the four output signals 116. The cross connect 100 functions by splitting each of the input signals 104(i) with an optical demultiplexer 108(i) into N signals 120(1 . . . N, i) that carry only a single wavelength channel λ1 . . . N. From each of the optical demultiplexers 108, the signal corresponding to a particular one of the wavelength channels is directed to a respective one of N 4×4 optical space switches 110(j). Each optical space switch 110 may be configured as desired to redirect the four received signals 120 to four transmitted signals 124. The transmitted signals 124 are transmitted to optical multiplexers 112 that recombine the reordered individual-wavelength signals onto the four output signals 116.
The efficiency of an arrangement such as shown in FIG. 1 is limited because it adopts a brute-force-type approach of demultiplexing the four incoming signals into their individual 4N components in order to reroute them. There is a general need in the art for more efficient optical wavelength cross-connect architectures without compromising complete routing flexibility.